Page 99 - the-idiot

in the most important matters. How can one deceive these
dear little birds, when they look at one so sweetly and con-
fidingly? I call them birds because there is nothing in the
world better than birds!
‘However, most of the people were angry with me about
one and the same thing; but Thibaut simply was jealous of
me. At first he had wagged his head and wondered how it
was that the children understood what I told them so well,
and could not learn from him; and he laughed like anything
when I replied that neither he nor I could teach them very
much, but that THEY might teach us a good deal.
‘How he could hate me and tell scandalous stories about
me, living among children as he did, is what I cannot un-
derstand. Children soothe and heal the wounded heart. I
remember there was one poor fellow at our professor’s who
was being treated for madness, and you have no idea what
those children did for him, eventually. I don’t think he was
mad, but only terribly unhappy. But I’ll tell you all about
him another day. Now I must get on with this story.
‘The children did not love me at first; I was such a sickly,
awkward kind of a fellow then—and I know I am ugly. Be-
sides, I was a foreigner. The children used to laugh at me,
at first; and they even went so far as to throw stones at me,
when they saw me kiss Marie. I only kissed her once in my
life—no, no, don’t laugh!’ The prince hastened to suppress
the smiles of his audience at this point. ‘It was not a matter
of LOVE at all! If only you knew what a miserable creature
she was, you would have pitied her, just as I did. She be-
longed to our village. Her mother was an old, old woman,

The Idiot